It was Yagharek. The garuda stood in the dimly lit space, legs apart and arms clutching at his cloak. The jutting shape of his wooden wing disguise swayed unrealistically from side to side. It was not properly attached. Isaac leaned over the rail and frowned.

“Yagharek?”

“Have you forsaken me, Grimnebulin?”

Yagharek was shrieking like a tortured bird. His words were almost impossible to understand. Isaac gesticulated at him to calm down.

“Yagharek, what the fuck are you talking about . . . ?”

“The birds, Grimnebulin, I saw the birds! You told me, you showed me, they were for your research . . . what has happened, Grimnebulin? Are you giving up?”

“Hang on . . . how in the name of Jabber’s arse did you see them fly away? Where’ve you been?”

“On your roof, Grimnebulin.” Yagharek was quietening. He was calmer. He radiated a massive sadness. “On your roof, where I perch, night after night, waiting for you to help me. I saw you release all the little subjects. Why have you given up, Grimnebulin?”

Isaac beckoned him up the stairs.

“Yag, old son . . . Damn, I don’t know where to start.” Isaac stared up at the ceiling. “What the arse were you doing on my roof? How long have you hung about up there? ’Stail, you could’ve kipped down here, or something . . . that is absurd. Not to say a bit eerie, thinking of you up there while I work or eat or shit or whatnot. And—” he held up his hand to cut off Yagharek’s response “—and I have not given up on your project.”

He was silent for a while. He let the words sink in. He waited for Yagharek to calm, to return from the miserable little hollow he had carved for himself.

“I haven’t given up,” he repeated. “What’s happened is quite good, actually . . . We’ve entered a new phase, I think. Out with the old. That line of research has been . . . ah . . . terminated.”

Yagharek bowed his head. His shoulders shuddered slightly as he breathed out lengthily.

“I do not understand.”

“Right, well, look, come over here. I’m going to show you something.”

Isaac led Yagharek over to the desk. He paused momentarily to tut at the huge caterpillar that sagged on its side in the box. It stirred weakly.

Yagharek did not spare it a glance.

Isaac pointed to the various bundles of paper that propped up overdue library books and teetered on his desk. Drawings, equations, notes and treatises. Yagharek began to sift slowly through them. Isaac guided him.

“Look . . . See all the damn sketches everywhere. Wings, for the most part. Now, the starting point for the research was the wing. Seems sensible, don’t it? So what I’ve been about is understanding that particular limb.